Grim Umber
by SilverChaosMageChione
Summary: Jen is not the typical Officer Jenny. Brooding, stoic, and rigid in her ways, she protects the city of Umber from all manner of scum with her devoted Growlithe. It's her duty to rid Umber of drug dealers, poachers, and murderers alike.
1. The Herb House

**Author's Note**

Hello! It's been awhile since I've written a fanfic, but I got this idea, and I can't let it go!

Now, this is a Pokemon fic. However, there will be much mature content, such as language, violence, etc. I warn you, this is not going to be a happy story. It's my idea of the Pokemon world's underbelly, how I think our world would be if Pokemon were real. Terrible things will be presented in this story, and I apologise in advance if events upset, disgust, or insult people.

So, you've been warned now! This is going to be a dark, dark tale, but probably a short one. I only plan on writing a couple of chapters.

Let's proceed with the story!

* * *

Jen crouched down, her hands tightly wrapped around her gun. Beside her Tiger Lily growled lowly, her orange fur bristling. Jen shook her head at the Growlithe to silence her, and Lil licked her chops in reply.

Across the street, other officers were moving into position, their own partner pokemon close behind them. Jen watched them closely, making sure her men were following orders. They had been working on this bust for months now, and she would be damned if someone screwed up now.

Two of her men in blue moved towards the building's door, one with a Machop and the other with a Koffing. The two waited for the others officers to get into place and pull on their gas masks. Once everything was ready and her own mask was in place, Jen raised up a fist, the signal to go.

Quickly the Machop used Dynamic Punch on the steel door. The metal nearly exploded, and Jen's men ducked away to avoid flying pieces, but the Koffing was already through the opening and filling the building with its Smokescreen.

"Move!" Jen yelled. She ran to the door, Tiger Lily at her heels, and plunged into the gas filled room. Though she couldn't see them, she knew her men were following as well.

Even though the Smokescreen smelled like something foul, Tiger Lily caught the scent of a man and was on him in moments. The poor bastard let out a scream as Lil knocked him over and bit down on his arm, making sure he stayed down. Jen could hear similar struggles happening all over the hazy room. There was another loud _crack_ as her men busted down another unseen door, and more shouts as other criminals were caught. Within a few minutes, it was all over, and the other officers were calling out "Clear" over the radios.

Jen brought her own radio to her mouth. "Benny, do it."

"Roger that," came the reply.

A strong wind pulled at her hair and clothes, and moments later the Smokescreen was blown away. Benny's Noctowl continued to use Gust until no traces of the fowl gas remained, then perched on its trainer's shoulder and folded its wings.

With the smog cleared, Jen counted five perps on the ground, held down by either police officer or pokemon. Only one was a dealer she had been looking for, the other four just junkies in to get their fix. Josh and his Chikorita brought two more from the back room, Chikorita's vines tightly wrapped around them. Another dealer, and what Jen figured was a technician. She wasn't sure which man was which position, however, because they both looked equally shifty.

"Get them out of here," Jen ordered, and her men began cuffing the perps and hauling them to the cars waiting outside. The ones she had pegged for dealers kept their mouths shut tightly and glared, while a junkie swore at the cops and struggled a bit. The others, however, looked too stoned out of their minds to put up much of a fight, and they laughed loudly, enjoying some kind of drug trip. She watched them all get shoved out the busted door, feeling sympathy for none of them.

"Look at this place," Benny said. He pulled off his gas mask and looked around. "It's a complete dive."

He was right. It was a disgusting place, even for a "Herb House." There were two tables up against one wall, one was littered with used needles. There was a couch on one side of the room, and a couple dirty mattresses on the floor for customers to pass out on after they shot up. Dirty clothes, or what looked like clothes, were all over the place.

Lil was sniffing around in the rags and let out a whimper, and turned to fix her warm brown eyes on Jen. She found something, Jen knew, and the woman made her way over to the Growlithe. Tiger Lily nudged a long piece of leather towards Jen when she crouched down beside her pokemon. She picked it up, and saw five shiny red and white Pokeballs attached to it. The poor pokemon had been dropped and forgotten while their trainer got high.

"Take these to a PokeShelter," Jen said, handing the belt to one of the other officers. "Hopefully they won't be too screwed up from their pathetic excuse for a trainer." The young man nodded, and quickly left with the Pokeballs.

"Captain," a voice called. Jen and Lil both looked up to see a one of the newer officers, a young man named Royce, standing in the doorway of the back room. "You need to come see this," Royce said. He looked incredibly pale, like he was going to be sick. Jen nodded and rose.

The back room was obviously the drug lab. It was crudely made at that, with items one could buy at the super market. Jen had expected to find a drug lab here, but it was what Royce had found further back that made a knot of disgust and anger tighten in her belly.

All along the back wall were cages filled with pokemon. There was a young Bulbasaur, two Brelooms clinging to each other through the bars of their cages, several Cherubi with their nutrient balls hacked off, a Gloom that shied away when Jen stepped closer to its cage, a Bayleef in a cage too small for its body, and a few Parises that seemed to have slivers of their mushrooms cut off. All of the caged pokemon looked weak and malnourished, some close to death even.

"Get Henry in here with his Meowth, fast," Jen ordered. Royce was gone and came back Officer Henry. Henry's Meowth went to work quickly, using its claws to pick the cage locks. While that happened, Jen sent Royce to get an ambulance and a Nurse Joy to see that the pokemon were taking to a PokeCenter quickly.

Jen called for two other officers from her squad. One of them had a Skitty that knew Heal Bell, and the other had a Roselia that could use Aromatherapy. She set the officers' partners to work on the captured pokemon, healing their wounds enough so they would last until the ambulance arrived.

Within fifteen minutes a Nurse Joy arrived with Chansey following. Jen, Royce, and her other two men assisted in moving the grass types into two ambulances. The officer with the Skitty climbed into one and went with Nurse Joy to the PokeCenter.

By then the Crime Lab had arrived and already set up shop. They worked swiftly, taking pictures of the Herb House, collecting evidence, and whatever else they did. Jen didn't stay inside to watch them work. She got her bad guys, what she had come here to do, but she wasn't happy.

Royce found her leaning against her car, scratching Tiger Lily behind the ears as the Growlithe chewed on a poffin. Royce's partner pokemon, a smaller-than-average Electrike nicknamed Jupi, trotted up to Lil and sniffed at her snack. Ever protective of her food, Lil growled and snapped at him, and Jupi scurried back to Royce.

"Don't do that," Jen said to Lil.

Her Growlithe looked up at her trainer with huge brown eyes, her expression innocent and a little hurt. But when she smelt Jupi sneaking up again, Tiger Lily's head snapped around quickly enough, eyes dark and hard when looking at the younger pokemon, and teeth bared. A quick, slightly hard tap on the muzzle from Jen put an end to that behaviour, however.

Royce didn't say anything as he rested his back on Jen's car beside her. He was younger than her, early twenties and fresh from the academy. Jen wondered if this was the first time he had seen a Herb Garden, since the dark expression on his round face made it seem like it was. Royce was well built, a few inches taller than Jen herself, though he still had some chub that his teachers at the academy had failed to burn off. His thin lips were pressed together to make a solemn line, and light orange hair shaded his blue eyes, eyes that looked like they could cry.

The two of them faced towards the Herb House and watched the other officers move in and out, following their instructions. The place was noisy, more noisy than Jen would have liked, and civilians were starting to gather at the ends of the alley way to see what was happening, as well as in the windows of the surrounding building. Jen couldn't help but wonder how many of them knew that this drug house had been here, and how many had visited it a time or two.

It was after almost an hour, and after Jen had been called back to the building a few more times by her men, that Royce finally said something. "What was that in there?"

"It was a Herb House," Jen explained. "A place where people bought, sold, and used drugs made from grass pokemon. You know that, they teach about it in the academy. They're all over the damn country."

"I know that," Royce said. "I meant the... what was in... what was up with those..." He couldn't finish his statement, and Jen felt that he was going to cry, or throw up. Maybe even both.

"You've heard of a Herb Garden?"

"Yeah," he admitted, but he still looked utterly confused. "I just didn't think..."

"That it would look like that?" she finished for him.

He nodded quickly and covered his mouth. Jupi whimpered and rubbed up against his leg.

Jen patted him on the shoulder. It was the most comfort she could give. "It's hard the first time," she admitted. "Hell, it's hard every time. Herb Gardens are despicable places, and any man or woman who participates in the making or usage of one should have the same horrors inflicted on them as they do to the pokemon they capture."

For a moment Jen thought he was done, but then Royce said, "Those Cherubi... their nutrient balls were gone."

"Cut off, to be used to make the drugs used there. Along with the seeds taken from the Bulbasaur, the spores from the Breloom, the leaves from the Bayleef, the nectar from the Gloom, and the mushrooms from the Paris."

"But without those balls, the Cherubi will never be able to mature, never be able to evolve."

"They might even die," Jen added. "If they're still very young."

The look Royce gave her was one of complete horror. It was clear he was still an innocent boy at heart, deaf and blind to the terrible ways of the world. She pitied him a little, because in this line of business all one ever got to see was the disgusting underbelly of the world. There were no adventures across the great wide nowhere, epic battles against members of the Elite Four, or hunts for legendary pokemon. What she and her men dealt with were crooked gym leaders, pokemon poachers, and all manners of pokemon/trainer abuse. Royce would either have to learn to toughen up, or find another way to make a living.

Jen gave him a tight squeeze on the shoulder and walked away to let him think. She only turned back once to make sure Tiger Lily was following. She found Lil right behind her, while Royce was slouched on the ground beside her car, his arms wrapped tightly around Jupi and face buried into the Electrike's neck.

At the doorway into the Herb House, Benny met her, along with Davy the Noctowl. He updated Jen on how things were being processed, and assured her as her second in command that things were going as she had ordered.

"Is he going to be okay?" Benny asked. He nodded his head towards her car and Royce.

"He'll be fine," Jen told him. "He just needs come to terms with his career choice."

"First Herb Garden?"

"First Herb Garden."

Benny let out a low whistle. "Tough break. This is only his fourth week into the job, isn't it?"

"Third, I think. I didn't see my first Garden until I had been working half a year on the force." Jen was examining the outside of the Herb House when her eyes came to rest on the small, almost unnoticeable, painting of an Oddish above the doorway's left corner.

She looked over for one of her men with a water pokemon and saw Alex and his Wooper. With a whistle and a nod, she had officer and pokemon rushing over to her.

"Yes, Captain?" Alex asked.

"That," Jen said, her tone low. She pointed to the painting of the Oddish. "I want that washed away. Now."

"Wait Jenny, have the Crime Lab taken pictures of the outside yet?" Benny asked. He looked at Alex for an answer.

The other officer shrugged. "Not that I know of."

"Well, find out," Jen ordered. "If they have, get rid of that thing. If not, try to get them to take pictures as quickly as possible, then Water Gun it the hell out of here. I don't want that Herb House symbol anywhere in my city, you got that?"

Alex and Wooper both looked frightened, and it was then that Jen realised she had raised her voice. She added a quiet, "please," and sent them on their way. Before Benny could start in on her about loosing her temper, she turned stiffly and returned to her car. Royce and Jupi were gone, off to who-knows-where, so Jen took his sitting position on the cement. Lil trotted up to her and laid her furry head on Jen's knee. Without really thinking, Jen ruffled her pokemon's ears.

Herb Houses. She despised them. It was one thing to use a pokemon for battle, for labour, and even as food. But drugs? It was disgusting. As Jen saw it, the world of pokemon and people should be equally balanced. A trainer can use a pokemon to battle, but in return the pokemon becomes stronger, and is cared for by its trainer. Many people ate pokemon, as burgers, steaks, some even in salads, but it was no lie that many wild pokemon ate humans as well. But people using pokemon to get high was too far. You never heard of a pokemon injecting itself with parts of a human, so why should humans do it with bits of pokemon? And most of the time, the pokemon used in places like Herb Gardens were harvested until they died. It was terrible, and she refused to let it happen within Garnet, her city to protect.

Jen continued to scratch Tiger Lily behind the ears as she waited for Alex to wash away that damned Oddish symbol.


	2. The Kadabra

Davy the Noctowl hooted at Jen and Tiger Lily as the made their way up the staircase. Davy sat on Benny's shoulder, and her second in command was standing beside the apartment doorway, watching as other officers held back civilians and interrogated witnesses.

The call had come early that morning, just as Jen was getting out of the shower. There had been what sounded like an explosion from an apartment downtown, though there was no fire afterward, not even smoke. The neighbours had tried to investigate themselves but were unable to enter the apartment due to some force holding the door firmly closed. Jen and her team were to head there with all haste.

Most of the team seemed to be there already, working expertly as Benny barked orders. Benny was a middle aged man, a few years older than Jen, with short brown hair, square jaw, beady eyes and muscular build. But despite his appearance, he was a fairly easy going guy, though he was firm with his orders and with the squad. Jen had known him for many years, and knew she could rely on him no matter what.

As she made her way up the last of the apartment steps, Benny turned to her with a grim expression. "You're not going to like this," he said.

"What've you found out?"

"We arrived about half hour ago," Benny began. "We couldn't get the door open, just like the tenants who had called it in. We had to get Steve up here to figure out what was going on."

Steve was the squad's techie. He was an expert at recognizing the effects of certain pokemon moves. He had to be, of course, after the four years of school it took to specialise in that field.

"And what did Steve find?" Jen asked.

Benny leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "He decided it was a combination of Reflect and Light Screen."

"A combo?"

"Yeah, and a powerful one, too. We had to get David in here, even though it was his day off, because his Hitmonlee is the only partner pokemon on the team that knows Brick Break. Even then, it took three attacks before the barrier broke."

"That's some serious defending," Jen said, impressed. "What did you find when you guys got in there?"

"Come see for yourself. But it's not a pretty sight."

He led the way into the apartment, and Jen and Lil followed after him. Once inside, though, Tiger Lily's fur began to bristle and she began to growl. Jen kneeled and put a hand on her Growlithe's back to calm her, though she could perfectly understand what Lil's problem was.

The apartment was small and dingy, with living room, kitchen, and bedroom all in one room, and a tiny bathroom attached. The entire main room was splattered with blood, its source a young man lying near the kitchen sink, his chest gaping open as if it had exploded and his eyes staring blankly at the roof. The bathroom door was open, and she could see a Nurse Joy and Chansey directing two of her men as they lifted an unconscious Kadabra onto a gerney and strapped it down.

"The guy was dead when we came in," Benny was saying. "By the look of the place, the explosion the neighbours heard was probably something attacking him, resulting in his death."

"Do we know what it was?" Jen asked, rising once Lil had calmed down.

Benny scratched his chin, a frown coming to his face. "We're thinking it was the Kadabra. Its an extremely strong one, for sure. It was huddled in the corner of the bathroom when we came in, but the moment we did it started freaking out and attacking. Thankful, Davy here automatically used Reflect himself, followed up Hypnosis." Benny reached up to the Noctowl on his shoulder and ruffled his partner's feathers. Davy hooted, pleased with himself. "The Kadabra's been out since," Benny added.

"Do we know what caused this kind of wound? What kind of attack it could've been?" Jen started walking towards the dead man.

"Not a clue yet," Benny admitted. "We're waiting for Joanna to get here."

"She's back in town?"

"Arrived home last night, and just in time. She could make all the difference in this case."

Jen crouched down beside the body. As she had first guessed, the guy was young, probably early twenties. Blond hair, green eyes, few pimples still, but other than that a decent looking fellow. Whatever attack had hit him it had torn open his shirt as well as flesh, muscle, bone, and one or two organs.

Still clutched in the dead man's hand was a wooden spoon with a bit of blood on the end. Jen turned to look at the Kadabra as her men wheeled it out of the apartment. The psychic pokemon was covered in bruises, the freshest still bleeding.

"The bastard was beating his Kadabra," Jen said aloud, instantly loosing all sympathetic feelings for the man.

"Maybe the Kadabra finally fought back?" Benny offered. Davy the Noctowl hooted, as if in agreement.

Jen only nodded. She noticed a tattoo on the man's right shoulder, a red letter R. Her level of empathy fell lower still.

"Victim, and I use "victim" lightly, may have been part of Team Rocket." When Benny raised an eyebrow, Jen pointed to the tattoo.

"We'd have to look into that further," her fellow replied. "He could've just been a wannabe. Got the tattoo to look tough."

"Better leave the rest for Joanna," Jen said and got to her feet.

While they waited, they interviewed other tenants of the building. The overall consensus was the same: early that morning there was what sounded like minor explosion coming from the apartment of the victim. Some of the tenants went to investigate, only to find that the apartment door could not be forced open, while others immediately called to police.

One tenant, a teenage girl in tears named Annette, had a bit more to add to the investigation.

"I knew him pretty well," she said after she blew her nose loudly. "His name was Saul Edric. We had a thing for a couple weeks after I had first moved here. It didn't last, but he'd always buy me booze and smokes if I asked him to."

"Did Saul have a Kadabra?" Jen asked, trying to sound kind and caring.

"Yeah," Annette answered as she wiped her running nose for the umpteenth time. "Nicknamed it Hassle because he was always having trouble with it."

"What do you mean?"

"Saul said Hassle never listened to him," Annette explained. "Saul once beat it for not showing me its Teleport, but I stopped him. That's why I stopped seeing Saul, because he was so mean to Hassle. It was a good pokemon, too. Me and it got along fine. If only Hassle would just evolve, Saul would've treated it better."

Jen frowned at this, a bit confused. "Saul beat his Kadabra because it wouldn't evolve?"

The teenager nodded. "He said he trained and trained Hassle, battled it over and over again, but it never evolved. Saul would get so angry and yell at Hassle, would smack it too, just because he wanted an Alakazam."

At this point Benny laid a hand on Jen's shoulder, perhaps sensing that she was about to explode with anger at this latest bit of information. He gave Jen a look that said, "calm down," and pushed her aside.

"Now Annette," Benny said to the teen. "Do you know if Saul was part of any illegal organizations?"

"No," Annette told him. "Saul was too much of a wuss to get into any kind of gang. Too afraid to get hurt. But he always talked about how he was "this close" to joining the Rockets. He idolised that group, even got the Team Rocket "R" tattooed on his arm. Thought that if Hassle would evolve into Alakazam, he'd get in for sure."

"Thank you, Annette," Benny said, patting the girl on the shoulder. "That's all we need for now." He grabbed Jen by the elbow and led her back into the apartment, away from the gathering crowd.

Once inside, he turned Jen to face him and put both hands firmly on her shoulders.

"Are you going to be alright?" he asked.

So far, Jen had kept her temper on a tight leash, but this latest information had turned her boilers on full blast. Idiots abusing pokemon got her right pissed off and fuming.

"He thought if he beat his pokemon enough it would evolve," she said through clenched teeth. Beside her, Tiger Lily whimpered, sensing her trainer was distressed. The Growlithe nuzzled Jen's leg, and her anger lowered slightly from the loving touch.

"Obviously he didn't know Kadabra had to be traded to evolve," Benny said. By the look on his face, he was equally unimpressed, though he controlled his emotions much better than Jen did.

She was about to open her mouth to vent more, but the sudden sound of heels clicking on the tiles made her stop. Both Jen and Benny turned to look at the doorway and saw Joanna standing there, kit in hand.

Joanna was one of the top crime scene investigators in the region, though you wouldn't know it by looking at her. Jen often found herself thinking that Joanna would make a better Officer Jenny than Jen herself did. While Jen wore her green hair in a bun and wore slacks, leather shoes, blouses, and her gun in a shoulder holster (which was very un-Officer Jenny like), Joanna always arrived at crime scenes in short skirts, fancy tops, heels, and her purple hair in curls. She didn't even carry a gun, believing it took away from her outfit, and instead used her Gallade, nicknamed Albert, as her bodyguard.

The fanciful woman stopped as she entered the apartment and gave the two officers a bright smile. Jen wondered, not for the first time, how Joanna could be so chipper in a room covered in blood.

"I'm baaaaack," Joanna proclaimed.

"We can see that," Jen replied, her tone dull. "Now can you get over here and do your job, or are you waiting for applause for that gallant entrance?"

This made Joanna pout. "Oh poo, Albert, Jenny is in a bad mood. However, she does have a point." Albert the Gallade, ever present by Joanna's side, bobbed his head in agreement and followed his mistress over to the corpse.

Jen and Benny watched in silence as Joanna and Albert set up her equipment. Other crime scene investigators were trickling in, quiet as mice, and began working at other parts of the apartment without having to be told. Jen had learned long ago that, even though Joanna could seem like an utter airhead, the woman took her job very seriously. She ruled her crime scene underlings with an iron fist and all of them went in fear of her. Hell hath no fury as Joanna annoyed, the underlings said.

Albert had pulled out a strange little machine out of the bag he carried and handed it to Joanna when Jen turned her attention back to dead body. It was Joanna's own invention, which she called the Sensedex. The little gizmo looked like a pokedex, only instead of pointing it at pokemon and receiving information on them, you pointed it at areas or objects that had undergone a pokemon's attack and it was able to pick up on particles left behind. It then processed the particles and gave back what exact attack had done the damage. The Sensedex sometimes was even able to pick up what pokemon had used the attack and roughly how powerful that pokemon was.

Joanna pointed the Sensedex at the huge hole in Saul's chest and waited for her machine to process the information. When it dinged, she looked up at Jen and Benny standing over her.

"I have two different attacks here," she told them.

"Well, spit it out, what are they?"

"The initial attack caused this," Joanna explained as she pointed out two long gashes on both sides of the gaping hole. They ran from Saul's neck down to his navel. "It was Psycho Cut. A Psycho Cut attack that was powerful enough to tear open this man's shirt as well as slash up his skin underneath."

"Psycho Cut isn't a very explosive move," Benny noted. "It's a straight on physical attack. So what caused the explosion?"

"The second attack," Joanna said, pulling all sorts of things out of her kit as she began to take samples. "That one was Psychic, but with an unusually high concentration. It torn this man apart, literally. I've never seen a Psychic this powerful."

"Do you know what pokemon used these attacks?" Jen asked.

Joanna nodded. "A very strong Kadabra it looks like. I mean, _very_ strong. As if someone made it train every single day nonstop strong."

"Idiot Saul didn't know Kadabra evolved through trade," Benny said. "If he thought Kadabra evolved through other means, he could've forced it to intensively train in hopes of getting it to evolve."

"Hassle may have a very high level," Jen agreed. "It did take awhile to break through even its Reflect and Light Screen barrier. But we'd have to test it to be completely sure."

The two officers left Joanna and Albert to their work and headed out of the apartment. Jen appointed Steve to be in charge while her and Benny went to check up on the Kadabra's condition at the PokeCenter.

As Jen drove up to the large building she couldn't help but scowl. Already news crews were setting up outside the PokeCenter, getting ready for a story. Tiger Lily growled at a passing news van as Jen parked her cruiser.

"Like Fearow to a corpse," Benny muttered once he got out of the passenger seat.

They headed towards the PokeCenter's entrance, ignoring the camera people and hoping they'd be ignored in returned. There was no such luck, however, for once one of the men caught sight of Tiger Lily trotting beside Jen, he gave a shout and his crew started towards them closely followed by other news crews.

"Officer Jenny!" the man who spotted her shouted. Jen quickly glanced at him and recognized him as a local reporter. His call was quickly followed by several others by fellow journalists as the group swarmed around Jen and Benny.

"Do you know what caused the explosion in the Forway Apartment Building today?" "Witnesses say it was a pokemon, is that true?" "Can you tell us what you found in the apartment?" "Some of the victim's neighbours believe he was part of Team Rocket, can you confirm that for us?" There were more questions, but Jen blocked them out as best she could, keeping her eyes locked on the PokeCenter's doorway and pushing through the wall of cameras and microphones.

Lil starts to snarl at the reporters. She wasn't found of closed spaces, and the people's legs were becoming a thick wall. Jen quickly scooped her Growlithe into her arms before Tiger Lily started snapping at people's shins in hopes of making an opening. Behind her, she could hear Davy almost screeching at the reporters and Benny giving a monotone reply of, "we are not liberty to give a statement at this time."

At the doors, the officers were greeted by a different Nurse Joy than the one that was at the crime scene and two Chansey. Nurse Joy led them into the PokeCenter, but the Chansey stayed behind to detain the press by using Sing.

"It's been like that for almost half an hour," Nurse Joy was saying as they followed her deeper into the PokeCenter. "They started appearing not five minutes after that Kadabra arrived."

She led them down a hallway and over to a large window. On the other side of the window was an infirmary. The Nurse Joy that had taken Hassle from the apartment was there smearing ointment on its bruises and wrapping up its cuts, while a Blissey was Singing softly in Hassle's ear to keep it sedated.

"Have you had any trouble with it?" Jen asked.

"He woke up once," Nurse Joy replied, "and began to attack things at random. The poor dear is very unstable, so we've been forced to keep him sedated. It will be some time before he calms down, I fear."

"We're going to need it- him," Jen corrected herself, "tested. We need to know how strong he is."

"Very strong, I assure you. He destroyed an x-ray machine by just looking at it."

"We still need to know _exactly_ how strong. And what attacks he knows, if possible."

Nurse Joy pursed her lips. "It may be a few days before he is able to receive testing, but I suppose I can see what I can do."

"I'd really appreciate that," Jen told her.

Nurse Joy left them then, to check on the Chansey guarding the entrance, and Jen watched as Hassle was bandaged up.

"This is going to turn into a mess," Benny finally said.

"I know."

"People are going to cry for Kadabra to be Eliminated."

Jen gritted her teeth. "I know." _And it's completely unfair_, she thought. This poor creature had been abused for who knows how many years, repeatedly beaten by a cruel, half-wit trainer. He might even have been driven insane, it was known to happen with abused pokemon. As far as Jen could tell, Hassle had only defended himself, and now he'll be seen as a monster for it.

_Eliminated_, she thought. The word was foul in her mouth, even without speaking it. It was just a nice way of saying "executed" or "put down." It was what happened to pokemon that were seen as a danger to the public.

"Benny," Jen finally said, turning to her second in command. "I want you to get a hold of Liza Dunnett for me."

Benny, who had taken a seat and was grooming Davy, gave her a surprised look. "Liza Dunnett? Really?"

"Yes, really."

"You and her don't get along all that well."

"I don't care," Jen said forcefully. "This is just the job for her. Tell her it's top priority. An innocent pokemon may lose his life."

Benny nodded, helped Davy to his shoulder, and headed further down the hall to make the phone call.

It was true, Liza Dunnett wasn't Jen's most favourite person in the whole world, but she might prove useful with this. Liza was a pokemon rehabilitation expert. She excelled at helping abused pokemon overcome their trauma, and either found them good new trainers, or helped them assimilate back into the wild.

The reason she was a thorn in Jen's side, however, was that she thought she could rehabilitate the abusive trainers as well. Her motto was "Everyone (pokemon and human alike) deserves a second chance." She would submit trainers arrested for pokemon abuse through months of psychiatry, and had personal one-on-one sessions with them in hopes of teaching them how to treat pokemon right.

Sometimes she tried to fight for the trainer's pokemon to be returned to him or her, though she hardly ever succeed in this aspect. It was a good thing, too, since three out of four of Liza's "treated trainers" were arrested again for pokemon abuse, and Jen was certain the ones who weren't arrested committed the crime still, only they had become better at concealing it.

"But Liza could help Hassle," Jen said to Tiger Lily as she scratched her pokemon's ears. "Saul Edric is dead anyway, so Liza can't try to "save" him."

Benny returned shortly to say that Liza agreed to help and would arrive at the PokeCenter shortly to talk about the case more. All Jen had to do was wait.


End file.
